Pride Appointment
Capital Pride Alliance chooses Dyana Mason as new executive director
The board of directors of the Capital Pride Alliance announced March 10 that Dyana Mason has been appointed as the executive director of the organization, which will produce the 2009 Capital Pride celebration in Washington.
Mason, 38, is well-known to the GLBT community as the former leader of Equality Virginia, where she served for six years. She started her tenure as executive director of Capital Pride, a paid full-time position, this week, but plans to continue living in Richmond.
”I will be coming up several days a week,” she says, adding that she plans to stay with family in the D.C. area a few days out of the week, spending more time here as Capital Pride nears, running June 5 to 14.
Mason said she applied for the position because it seemed like a ”fantastic opportunity to be able to serve the GLBT community of metro D.C., and to serve the ‘country’s Pride.’
”I saw it as an opportunity to continue to build my skills, as well as continue to serve. I’m very excited about joining the Capital Pride team.”
Mason said she does not know if her position is permanent, or if it will run through the 2009 celebration alone.
”My focus right now is to help support the 2009 event and we will see what happens after that,” she says, adding that her new position requires typical executive director duties such as raising money, generating publicity, and helping to organize volunteer efforts.
”It’s pretty much what normal executive directors would do in these types of situations.”
Before Equality Virginia, Mason, a graduate of the University of Southern California, worked at the Human Rights Campaign as a membership organizer and Southern field organizer.
Capital Pride 2009 celebrates the theme, ”Generations of Pride: Celebrate and Remember, Stonewall at 40.” The 34th Annual Capital Pride parade will be held June 13, followed by the street festival on June 14.
In March of 2008, the Whitman-Walker Clinic, responsible for the Capital Pride celebration since 2000, first as a co-sponsor with One In Ten and then solely, chose the Capital Pride Alliance to manage the annual event. The 2009 celebration will be CPA’s first year fully running Capital Pride.
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